The Inspection
by wordybirdy
Summary: Mrs. Hudson is a landlady on a mission.  Holmes & Watson look on in dismay.


It happened upon a blustery Wednesday morning in February. I had been sitting quite comfortably at our table nearest the window, putting together the pieces of a particularly challenging jigsaw puzzle, the grass pieces of which were vexing me most terribly at that moment. I had coped fairly well with the several hundred identical segments of blue sky, and the very many pieces of varying shades of brown which composed the mottled bricks of the old farmhouse building - but the 400 green fragments scattered around me now were effectively turning my eyes almost in upon themselves.

When Holmes entered our rooms, therefore, I did not look up to greet him immediately. I first blinked and rubbed my eyes, stretched my back, and only then glanced across to where he stood. My friend's face was the most ghastly pallor.

"Holmes, my dear fellow, whatever has happened?" I asked him in some concern.

Holmes opened his mouth and, I believe, attempted to formulate a sentence, but he was unable to utter more than a precursory "Mrs. Hudson…!"

I rose from my chair in alarm. "What is the matter with Mrs. Hudson? Has she been taken ill, Holmes?"

"No, Watson, _no_. It is so very much worse than that! Mrs. Hudson… is about to carry out an inspection _of our rooms!_"

Holmes spun then, as he spoke, and gesticulated wildly about him. He looked back to me and gurned a look of anguish. I returned his panic with my customary calm puzzlement.

"Well, that is perhaps a slightly unusual thing for Mrs. Hudson to do, but not _entirely_ out of the ordinary, Holmes. She is our landlady, after all, and she is within her rights to routinely check the upkeep of her property. Hum, I believe it is the first time that she has requested such a visit, though, is it not?"

Holmes nodded wildly. He gesticulated again. He flapped and spun, took three steps forward and one step back. It looked as if he might be inviting me to join him in some elaborate tango.

"Holmes," said I, "our rooms are in order, I can see nothing amiss. What problems do you foresee with the inspection?"

"Why, look! Look!" Holmes dashed to the far wall and pointed halfway up, where the letters "V.R." in bullet holes pierced through the wallpaper and into the brick.

"And look!" He moved to the mantelpiece and ran his hand along the wood which was scarred with a thousand stabs of the jack-knife used to secure our unanswered correspondence.

"And look here!" He spun and pointed as a demented wind-cock at the very many chemical and acid splashes staining our furniture and carpets. "And then, of course, there is you and your confounded watercolour paints, Watson."

"Well, now that you point everything out to me, I can see that perhaps we do have a problem," I admitted. "But Holmes, I beg of you, do calm down, we can very likely fix all of this."

"How?" he gasped. "The visit is in one hour! The damage, Watson, the damage! It will be placed to our rent! We will be living on bread and cheese for the next three years!"

Holmes's wholly unconscious attempt at the cha-cha was very impressive; I had never guessed that his talents might lie in that direction. I made a mental note to enquire later if he had happened to take ballroom lessons in his youth.

"Holmes, I am fairly certain that Mrs. Hudson must already have observed the small damages which you have pointed out to me. If she has not seen fit to mention them before then it is likely that she will not do so now." I said, hopefully.

"Well, she is as blind as a bat without her spectacles," Holmes replied. "She dusts and she tidies but she does not observe. She moves as few of our papers as possible because we have requested that she disturb nothing. And now she is intent upon disturbing, Watson! Quick, man, do you have any paintings which we might hang to cover the worst of the damage?"

I raised my hands as a lost cause. "Holmes, we cannot go banging a myriad of nails into the wall right at this very minute; Mrs. Hudson would be most suspicious. Come, let us redistribute these papers a little and see if we can obscure some of the greater chemical blots."

We busied ourselves for some minutes in layering the offending surfaces with pages of my writings and sheets of Holmes's chemical notations. Holmes set up a busy row of pipes along the top of the mantel to hide the knife pocks. But as for the bullet marked wall, there was very little we could do except, perhaps, do our best to divert the good lady's attention away from that section of the room. We stood back to survey our work. The sitting-room was now quite the worst it had ever been - as though a paper mill had vomited its entire day's output directly through our bay window in the middle of a full force gale.

"Good heavens, Holmes," said I, "this is a frightful mess. Either way, I declare that Mrs. Hudson is going to scold us dreadfully."

"I fear it, and know it," said my friend, no longer dancing, but standing sombrely amidst the flume with an expression of controlled despair upon his face. "I wonder if she might accept one of your portraits as part-payment, do you think, Watson?"

"I have no intention of settling any of my debts with my paintings, Holmes," I replied, stiffly. "We are not quite so insolvent as all that. Let us wait and see what happens."

Within the hour, we heard the slow footstep of our landlady upon the stairs, and shortly a tap upon the door and a rattle at the handle. Mrs. Hudson entered. She was wearing her spectacles. She was holding a bound notebook and pencil. This was not an auspicious start.

"Good morning, gentlemen," the good lady smiled at us both. She took in the state of our sitting-room, then, and the smile dropped from her face like a stone. "Why, what on earth has happened here, Mr. Holmes, Doctor Watson? I have never seen your room so…" The sentence remained unfinished. The pencil tapped ominously against the pad.

"Come now, Mrs. Hudson," said Holmes, smoothly, as he stepped forward to guide her by the elbow. He began to steer her in the direction of the window. "The Doctor and I have been very occupied today and our papers appear to have run away with themselves. Do not let that concern you. Where would you wish to begin your inspection?"

Our landlady cast a brief, indulgent smile at Holmes and eased her elbow free of him. "Why have you led me over to the window, Mr. Holmes?" she asked. "Anyone would think that you were trying to hide something. I am familiar with the layout of the room, gentleman, I shall walk my own route, thank you."

With pad and pencil aloft, her spectacles perched on the end of her nose, Mrs. Hudson commenced to traverse the room while Holmes and I hovered anxiously a few feet behind her. The ceiling, windows and bookcases survived without comment. Our armchairs and the sofa escaped with no foreboding click of the tongue. Papers were unceremoniously swept to one side as the good lady continued her mission with intent.

"Those pipes were not there yesterday, I declare," she said suddenly, looking across to the mantel.

"I am quite sure that they were," said Holmes.

"No, I do not believe that they were," said she. With a deft movement she slid them to one side. "Oh, Mr. Holmes! The mantel!"

"A few small scuffs, perhaps?" he offered feebly.

"Scuffs!" she exclaimed, "I think those are a little more than scuffs, Mr. Holmes." And she scribbled on her pad. Holmes and I exchanged pained glances.

"Are those bullet-holes, Mr. Holmes?"

"I am very much afraid that they are, Mrs. Hudson."

Scribble.

"Paint stains on the rug, Doctor Watson?"

"I am unable to deny it, Mrs. Hudson."

Scribble scribble.

"Acid on the table top, Mr. Holmes!"

"But in a very mild form, Mrs. Hudson!"

Scribble, scribble, _scribble_.

"Gentlemen," said our landlady, some fifteen minutes later, "I had my suspicions, but was really most unprepared for the full extent of the deterioration of the décor and furniture in this room. The _wall_, Mr. Holmes, the _wall_." And she shook her head in disbelief. "It is not normal behaviour."

"I am not normal," said Holmes, contritely, which was without question the most accurate analysis he had ever made regarding himself. "And neither is Watson."

I did not appreciate the latter sentiment quite as much.

"How may we recompense you for this terrible inconvenience?" my friend continued. "We offer you our assurances that from now on we shall take the utmost of care with all of your effects."

"That is as maybe," said Mrs. Hudson in an aggrieved tone, "but I must examine my notes here and then consult with the good people who will put things to rights. I will keep you both informed as regards expenses. Thank you, gentlemen."

"Holmes," I whispered quietly, after our landlady had departed, "I feel as though I were eight years old again."

"As do I," he replied. "It is the most dreadful feeling. I did not at all enjoy being eight years old."

I nodded, and looked around me again at the residue of our informed chaos. "I suppose we had better tidy. I dare not guess how much Mrs. Hudson will estimate our final bill to be."

"An arm, a leg, and one of your kidneys, Watson," said Holmes, as he heaved an armful of papers into an uneven stack. "And that is the very least of it."

Three days later we received the invoice from our landlady. I opened it and began to chuckle. As Holmes looked at me questioningly, I read aloud from the unfolded sheet:

**_ For the cost of repairing/replacing:_**

**_ Brickwork & wallpaper_**

**_ Mantel_**

**_ Spoiled furniture_**

**_ Stained rugs_**

**_ = 1 x 20" x 20" framed watercolour portrait of your landlady; the sitting at a time and place _****_convenient to her, within a two week time frame._**

"You see now, my boy," my friend said, laughing, "how your talents are able to get us out of the tightest of scrapes. Whatever would I do without you, my dear Watson?"

"You would be living on bread and cheese for the next three years, Holmes," said I, patting him comfortingly on the shoulder as I reached across for my faithful paint pad and box.


End file.
